Despite less water and rising costs, agriculture output keeps growing

Growing plant innovation

On the glorious Saturday of June 7, I tramped through several North County farms as a participant in the Farm Bureau’s public tour day.

I ate my share of vine-ripened tomatoes and strawberries and bought a T-shirt. I also came away with a fresh appreciation of the power of ordinary innovation.

Given the onslaught of new gadgets from companies we’ve barely heard of, it’s easy to forget that innovation doesn’t spring exclusively — or even primarily — from university labs or software incubators.

Instead, most innovation comes from established companies in a relentless drive for improvement.

Sometimes, a big payoff is the driving force. More often, new ideas and practices are organic responses to competitive threats or changes in the marketplace.

And sometimes innovation becomes ordinary; like breathing or washing your hands, simply because the business you’ve chosen is just so darned hard.

I saw plenty of examples in each category on the farm tour. I shouldn’t have been surprised.

Government keeps stacking hurdles higher for farmers: San Diego County has some of the nation’s highest costs for land, water, power and taxes.

Just as important, competition has gone almost completely global, with leaps in logistics unlocking lower costs on the one hand, while teaching customers not to wait for seasons on the other.

And globalization has sent waves of invasive agricultural pests and diseases into local fields. Yet, local farming isn’t dying — it’s expanding.

San Diego County’s farmers produced $1.75 billion worth of crops in 2012, the most recent year in government figures. That’s up about 4 percent, or nearly twice the rate of inflation. It was the fourth consecutive year of increases.

And they squeezed this additional value from generally declining acreage since 2008, although land in production increased 1 percent in 2012.

Deploying technology

For a particularly ostentatious example of how farmers pulled this off, look no farther than Plug Connection.

The Vista-based company is a world leader in “plugs,” the little seedlings that nurseries and other farmers grow into ornamental plants or vegetables.

An economist might call this extreme specialization: Starting plants from seeds and grafts is relatively difficult, so most growers buy tiny, easily shipped plugs and raise them in fields and greenhouses closer to the end customers.

Plug Connection is very good at deploying the science and technology of starting plants. Under 350,000 square feet of greenhouse space, it looks a lot more like a computer-chip factory than a traditional farm.

Sparkling clean machines controlled by microprocessors insert seeds or grafts into trays holding up to 512 plants. Workers disinfect their shoes and hands before they enter a series of climate-controlled growing rooms.

Bar-coding and scanning allow customers to track inventory online. Managers can monitor everything from automated watering systems to crop losses and growth rates. Computers can — and do — wake people at home if growing conditions vary too much.

Expanding business

Just as impressive was the culture of constant improvement on display. After all, you can buy all this stuff if you have enough money.